Posted
by
samzenpuson Wednesday April 28, 2010 @12:44PM
from the eye-of-the-beholder dept.

The Melbourne city council learned the hard way that one man's art is another man's crap on a wall that needs to be painted over. The council hired a cleanup crew to get rid of graffiti on Hosier Lane, a street renowned for its street art. While there, the crew got rid of the graffiti, as well as a piece by Banksy, who is regarded as one of the world's greatest street artists. From the article: "The reclusive Banksy ... painted several stencils in Melbourne during a 2003 visit. His satirical and distinctive art is often directed at anti-war, cultural, and anti-capitalist themes. Banksy in 2005 painted nine images on Israel's West Bank barrier, including a ladder going over the wall and an image of children breaking through to a tropical island. In 2008, a London wall bearing one of his stencils was said to have sold on eBay for almost $500,000."

This has happened all over London as well. In the 4 years I was there.. i used to know of about 25 pieces.. and when i left they were down to about 7.
The small "Rats" have a particular knack of getting painted over.. they are all gone, bar one that I know of, in London.

His work is only valuable because of the context in which it is created. If he had always done those stencils on the walls on someone's private property with their permission no one would pay $500K for them.

Sillyness. Art should be art independent of the context in which it is created or displayed. Otherwise it's just a form of performance art, and we know what utter crap that is.

Look, it's bad enough seeing this in the comments constantly, without having it in the summary itself. Is it so difficult to just read your sentence to yourself -- "a street renowned for it is street art" -- and realize that it's not quite right?

I think the word "priceless" is overblown. If it's priceless, then protect it. If this artist indeed wanted lasting work, he'd ask for permissions first and then choose a location likely to be preserved instead of the side of a building like any old generic graffiti. How is the average person supposed to know the difference between vandalism graffiti and art graffiti anyway? This is just like the museum janitor who threw away the collection of rubbish that was an art exhibit, because it happened to look

i like the idea that this sort of work is ephemeral. You have to be in a certain place at a certain time to experience. His work has to be found because it's not in a museum, gallery or Hot Topic. The disposable nature of his work is appropriate. i like these street artists who make life a bit more surreal and make the mundane (and ugly) funny or even meaningful.

Besides, we have cameras and websites to make him and his work immortal.

I have to agree here... ART, especially "Street Art" is very subjective. And the line between art and graffiti is incredibly blurred. Beyond this, if the "artist" didn't have permission to paint/draw on those walls/buildings it is graffiti.

The only difference is that a Fettecke has no resemblance of art to the layman and thus its removal by cleaners shouldn't suprise anyone. Where as a streetart painting usually does display concrete results of artistic effort that aren't easy to dublicate. I could make a Fettecke right away, but not a piece of streetart. Not without artistic practice and training that is. Goes to show what is truly art and what not, imho.

I understand the "creative class" needs their validation because they cannot cope with the real world. But graffiti is vandalism. Deal with it.
What if one of them takes a shit on your porch and calls it "art?"

I understand the "creative class" needs their validation because they cannot cope with the real world. But graffiti is vandalism. Deal with it.What if one of them takes a shit on your porch and calls it "art?"

If you can sell it for $500k, art or not, I don't think you'd want the cleaning crew to toss it in a dumpster.

I understand the "creative class" needs their validation because they cannot cope with the real world. But graffiti is vandalism. Deal with it.What if one of them takes a shit on your porch and calls it "art?"

For those that don't follow graffiti news, Banksy articles are appearing in media all over the world right now as his pieces (or imitations of the original, Blek le Rat [bleklerat.free.fr] , and Banksy style) appear as promotion for his movie Exit Through The Gift Shop [imdb.com]

Here in Bristol (Banksy's hometown), the public outcry over the council painting over well loved graffiti has got to the point where they will now hold a public vote on which bits to keep, and what will be painted over.
Personally I love the different paintings which are on almost every flat surface in parts of town (eg Stokes Croft), they turn what would otherwise be a pretty crappy corner of town, into a big out-door gallery.

Assigning value to a stencil on someone else's property...sure, makes prefect sense. People who do work of this nature (graffiti, street art, whatever) don't get bent out of shape when their illegal spots get painted over.